In evaluating Nicholson's doctrine, I wish to point out, first, the inaccuracy of the statement that all credit rests on a gold basis. It is true that credit instruments are commonly drawn in terms of standard money, which is commonly gold. International credit instruments may even specify gold, and the same thing happens at times within a country. But commonly, in this connection, gold functions, not as the value basis lying behind the credit instrument, the existence of which justifies the extension of the credit, but rather as the _standard of deferred payments_, by means of which the credit instrument may be made definite. The real basis of the value of a mortgage is not a particular sum of gold, but rather the value of the farm, expressed in terms of gold. The basis of a bill of exchange is not a particular sum of gold, but rather is the value of the goods which changed hands when the bill of exchange was drawn,[368] supplemented by the other possessions of drawer, drawee, and the endorsers through whose hands it has gone. Even a note unsecured by a mortgage, or not given in payment for a particular purchase, is based, in general, on the value of the general property of the man who gives it, and on the value of his anticipated income.[369] So throughout. Credit transactions, for the most part, originate in exchanges, and carry their own basis of security in the goods and securities which change hands, not in that small fraction of the world's wealth, the stock of gold, which could, Coin Harvey asserted in the middle '90's, be put in the Chicago grain-pit! And now let me extend this idea. Although coin made from the standard of value is a great convenience, there is yet no vital need, in theory, for a single dollar, pound or franc made from the standard of value. If gold should cease entirely to be used as a medium of exchange, or in bank or government reserves, if the gold dollar should become a mere formula, so many grains of gold, without there being any coins made of it, still, so long as that number of grains had a definite, ascertainable value, commensurate with the value of some other commodity which could be used as a means of paying balances and redeeming representative money, the gold dollar could still serve as a measure and standard of values. In the situation I have assumed, silver bullion, at the market ratio, could perform all the exchange and reserve functions now performed by gold, even though not so conveniently.[370] Nicholson's description of the use of gold as a reserve, while calling attention to an important fact, has led him into the error of supposing that what may be true of gold, the _medium of exchange_, and _reserve for credit operations_ is necessarily true of the _standard of value as such_.